Now, I have no more evidence that this is a Crimean War quilt than Peto had it was a Civil War quilt---actually less. She may have heard a family story. I am just making it up. I wish she were around to discuss this with---perhaps over a cup of hot chocolate---or a chocolate martini.

I'd say, "Futhermore, Florrie, it's not quilted but a finished spread. Such a British finish to patchwork."

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Last week I wondered about the story on this unquilted bedcover in the collection of the Shelburne Museum. For sixty years it has been published as having been made by a recovering American soldier, a veteran of the Civil War.

Here is a corner block from the appliqued border.

The Shelburne's counterpane features a center panel with human figures, hearts and leafy vegetation floating on a white background, much like this bedcover:

And this one where human figures, horses and other creatures float around a central star: the center of an 1874 bedcover by British children in the Cam Blue Coat School in the collection of Britain's Quilt Museum and Gallery.

The Shelburne coverlet's figures are similar to the horseman in this unquilted British bedcover in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has prominent shapes based on on
Hiram Powers's 'The Greek Slave' sculpture done in 1846 (the figure in orange and red above.)

Some shapes are similar in the Greek Slave bedcover and the Shelburne's but also important is another style characteristic popular with British patchworkers: the idea of cutting the applique from a large print. In the Greek Slave bedcover the maker was fond of buff and blue stripes:

Buff and blue stripes shaded in rainbow or fondu style were quite popular in America and England about 1840-1865, shown off to nice effect in this American block quilt from Laura Fisher Quilts.

The unknown maker of the Shelburne's counterpane also used large-scale buff and blue prints for figures.

I haven't seen the Shelburne's quilt in the cloth, so I don't really have any visual evidence that the fabrics are earlier than the 1870's period alluded to in the idea that a recovering American veteran made the quilt. I'm going more on style. The style incorporating an appliqued center in a field of triangular patchwork was done in both America and Britain, but by the 1870s Americans were no longer interested in a framed center design.

American Anna Tuel's quilt dated 1786,

a field of patchwork frames a central appliqued design.

Collection: Wadsworth Atheneum

Americans stopped using medallion sets with fields of patchwork early in the 19th century.

British frame quilt

Britons continued to favor the set into the 20th century.

Could the Shelburne's quilt be British?

And consider the social context: The idea of an American veteran doing patchwork for post-traumatic stress therapy is not a common story.

But it is a common story in Great Britain, where Crimean War soldiers were encouraged to stitch patchwork. A good body of surviving quilts offers evidence that they took to the activity enthusiastically.

Crimean War quilt

Sold at Kerry Taylor Auctions in London

The Battle of Balaclava, 1854

The Crimean War between Russia and England that took place in 1853-1856 is best remembered in the U.S. for Florence Nightingale's work with wounded soldiers, an inspiration to women in our Civil War (1861-1865).

Detail of Private Thomas Walker

by Thomas Wood, 1855

Collection: Royal College of Surgeons

The idea of men piecing scraps of wool into elaborate bedcovers was popular enough in Britain that an 1855 painting records the activity. Americans did not follow the British practice of occupational therapy for recovering soldiers, however.
It is possible that the Shelburne's quilt was handed down with the story of a recovering soldier's making it---but recovering from a different war. This is all speculation but consider this image.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

by Richard Caton Woodville

We've all heard of the Light Brigade made famous in 1854. The Light Brigade were Lancers, horsemen who did not carry guns but fought with swords and lances---long sharp sticks---lighter than firearms.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

This unquilted counterpane has been in the collection of Vermont's Shelburne Museum since 1952. In the original Shelburne catalog published in 1957 curator Lilian Baker Carlisle began her catalog entry with:

" This spread, illustrated and described in American Quilts and Coverlets by Florence Peto, was found in New Jersey and shows textiles much older than the Civil War period....Traditionally this counterpane was made by a Civil War veteran whose nerves had been shattered by his wartime experiences. After he was invalided home, he started this quilt as a therapeutic measure..."

She was using information from dealer and collector Florence Peto who found the quilt and probably sold it to the Shelburne. In her book Peto described the fabrics as "chintz, Scotch ginghams [woven plaids I assume], and paisley-patterned calicoes, all characteristic of the period..."

Peto saw symbolism in the imagery:

"Crescent moons, hearts, and fat, complacent doves may have been introduced to the militant picture to humor a wife or sweetheart."

The central area has appliqued human figures around a star or sun.

This woman with something in her hand seemed familiar to Carlisle & Peto

as La Belle Chocolatiere

(The beautiful waitress in the chocolate shop)

from this 18th century pastel drawing by

Jean-Etienne Liotard,

which became part of the image of the American Baker's Chocolate Company in the 1880s.

Following a field of triangular patchwork are more human figures, men on horseback alternating with men on foot.

The last border is a variation on the patchwork field.

There seems to be a difference of opinion between Carlisle and Peto. Could it be that the quilt is made of "textiles much older than the Civil War period." rather than "characteristic of the [Civil War] period."

Two British quilts with similar figures

It's foolhardy to try to date fabrics from photographs. The best evidence available from photos is style. This unquilted, finished counterpane has much more in common stylewise with British quilts than American.

Union and Confederate
armies clashed near the Morgan houses in early August. Sarah's home was severely damaged, not from
shelling but from vandalism by the victorious Yankees. The women left the Asylum and moved from
friend's house to friend's house, landing at a plantation twenty
miles north of Baton Rouge.
At the end of August sister Miriam returned from a trip home to their battered
neighborhood.

Andrew D.Lytle

Baton Rouge with the State Capitol in the distance

August 25, 1862 Linwood, East Feliciana
Parish

"She says when she entered
[our] house, she burst into tears at the desolation. It was one scene of ruin.
Libraries emptied, china smashed, sideboards split open with axes, three cedar
chests cut open, plundered, and set up on end; all parlor ornaments carried
off…. They entered my room, broke that fine mirror for sport, pulled down the
rods from the bed and with them pulverized my toilet set, taking all Lydia's
china ornaments I had packed in the wash-stand. The debris filled my basin and
ornamented my bed. My desk was broken open. Over it was spread all my letters,
and private papers, a diary I kept when twelve years old, and sundry 'tokens of
dried roses, etc,' which must have been very
funny, them all being labeled with the donor's name and the occasion. Fool! how
I writhe when I think of all they saw…Lilly's sewing-machine had disappeared;
but as mother's was too heavy to move, they merely smashed the needles."

Library of Congress

Sewing machines were considered the machinery of war because uniforms were sewed on them. Union soldiers often destroyed machines when they came upon them. Breaking the needles was enough. With the blockade Southerners had a hard time getting replacements.